Opinion Nehru Memorial becomes PMs’ Memorial: Why New India and its new elite cannot live with ideas of its first PM

Nehru was one of the most prominent leaders of India’s struggle for freedom from British imperialism and spent close to 11 years in jail as a part of the struggle. He was also instrumental in creating a blueprint for India’s social transformation. The blueprint consisted of a scheme for the modernisation of the society, economy and polity, while retaining some of the positive features of traditions. As proof of this, everybody should read his book The Discovery of India, written in jail in 1944-45, in which a great admiration for India’s part has been seamlessly woven into a modern vision for the future. Nehru also presided over the most transformative phase of Indian history during 1947-52. In these years, British imperialism was overthrown; landlordism in agriculture was dismantled; over 560 princely states were integrated into the Indian republic; we acquired a progressive, forward-looking and emancipatory Constitution, and India conducted the largest general election held anywhere in the world. Nehru combined a nationalist commitment with an international accountability. And he attempted successfully to make pluralism a part of Indian society’s DNA. Nehru fostered grass-roots democracy, robust nationalism and a secular orientation in India’s body politic. He also carried out the historically unprecedented task of initiating India’s industrialisation within a parliamentary framework.

Around 1947, there was an effort to reorient India as a Hindu country, partly as a reaction to the Muslim Pakistan that had been created. Nehru stood firmly against this move and made sure that the Indian democracy remained firmly anchored in pluralism and secularism and against majoritarianism.

It is partly for some of these reasons that Nehru has become unpalatable for the current ruling establishment. But it is also true that Nehru’s legacy has been constantly fading away from the minds of the people. Is there an explanation for this?

Nehru was easily the most popular political leader of his time, particularly after Gandhi’s death. His popularity emanated from two sources: The masses admired him and a relatively small, enlightened and cosmopolitan middle class — concentrated in the bureaucracy, academia, media professions and civil society in general — looked up to him for leadership and inspiration. Even though numerically small, the members of this class were socially very influential. They were also accepted as cultural leaders by the people at large. Nehru was extremely successful in creating a generation of stakeholders committed not to primordialism but to the core values of the Constitution. The elite and the masses were not fused into a single collectivity but remained connected in a federal relationship. The members of this upper crust, drawn from the cities and brought up with the values of the freedom struggle, became the social and cultural leaders of the new independent India. They also took Nehru — and all that he stood for — to the people. Bombay cinema of the 1950s and ’60s is a glaring example of this.

Two things happened that dismantled this scenario. The structural link between the enlightened elite and the masses started weakening in the 1990s. At the same time, the expansion of the new elite also brought about a great dilution in the ideational commitments of the earlier, numerically smaller elite. The new elite was also competitive, insecure and ruthless. It was drawn from “locked zones” of Indian society where the modern ideas of democracy and civic virtues had not made much of an entry. Although the number of universities multiplied dramatically, they ceased to be the arena for nurturing liberal and progressive ideas and ideals. A ruthless Darwinian race of the new elite for “inclusion” replaced the earlier ideational commitments of the Nehruvian elite.

It is this section that has expanded considerably in the 21st century. The ruling classes have certainly played a role in creating the new realities. Nehru is both irrelevant and an embarrassment for this newly expanded elite. An aggressive, masculine, ruthlessly competitive, majoritarian India would find it very difficult to connect with Nehru’s ideas. The ruling establishment knows very well that any attempt to erase Nehru’s legacy will not encounter any opposition from the new elite. New India does not need him till we embark on a moral and intellectual revolution.

Till then, goodbye Mr Nehru!

The writer teaches history at the Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD)